Description:Integrative Seminar 1 has two important goals. First, it will prepare students to read and write at the university level. Throughout the semester, students will work toward questions of scholarly consequence as they acquire the authority needed to write their way into existing intellectual conversations. Second, its relationship with Integrative Studio 1 will result in critical dialogues between seminar and studio practice, or writing and making. This course shares a common theme with Integrative Studio 1 and at various times in the semester, the two classes share ideas, concepts and assignments through bridge topics. In this way, it will bring together reading, writing and making in a manner that is essential to the creative work of artists and designers in every discipline. The Parsons Learning Portfolio will be introduced and developed in the Integrative courses. Course sections are thematic and include:

Avatar Avatar has two distinct meanings. In Hinduism and Buddhism, it means the physical appearance of a god. Online, it means a picture of a person or an animal that represents a particular user. How do both definitions describe an identity that is distinct from the original and yet intensely connected to it at the same time?

Fake Fake describes something that is not what it appears to be. Counterfeit bags, forged money, stage names, mockumentaries, pranking, the list goes on. But how do we define what is real and what is fake? Could something fake actually be more powerful, more authentic, than truth?

Memory Memory is an action or process of commemorating, recollecting, or remembering a person, object, or event. How do these actions and processes shape identity and our understanding of the world?

Shift To shift means to move from one place, or one thing, to another. Many of you have firsthand experience with this kind of movement - from one place to another, from one set of ideas to another, from one story to another. What are your stories of shifting? How do these shifts come to pass? How do we talk about them through our work?

Open to: Parsons First Year students.

Note: Those sections with the designation [LS] are Language Supportive and were designed for students placing into NELP 1700 or NELP 1800. Pre-requisite: Placement above or successful completion of ESL 1650 for students for whom English is a second language.